All the Beautiful Things
by Polexia Aphrodite
Summary: "How sad he had been when she first met him, how lonely and angry. There was sadness in him still – for his parents, for Peggy and Bucky – but it was different now, the sharp burn replaced by a dull ache." The sequel to A Losing Game. Captain America/OC. Rated M for a reason.
1. Chapter 1

_**Notes**_: This story is a sequel to _A Losing Game_, which must be read first for this to make sense. The title comes from the Rilo Kiley song _I Never_, which reminds me of Steve and Anne. The full lyric is, "All of the beautiful things that make you weep, but don't have to make you weak," which I think is just lovely.

_A Losing Game_ ended on New Years, 2014, and this story picks up in July, 2014. Obviously, we're deviating from as-yet unestablished Marvel canon at this point. The format is ten episodes from the later lives of Anne, Steve, and company.

This chapter is a little more Anne-centric, the next one is more Steve-centric. It might be a little while until the next update, but I wanted to get this up for the people who were looking forward to it. As always, thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to review this story. Knowing that someone is enjoying what I'm writing means a lot to me.

Also, just so I don't feel like I'm being obscure, the opening paragraph includes a reference to the Dodgers, which were, of course, originally the Brooklyn Dodgers (_Captain America _establishes Steve as a baseball fan; I'd assume the game he attended in May 1941 was a Dodgers game) and became the LA Dodgers in 1957.

Disclaimer: Original characters belong to me, the rest belongs to Marvel/Disney.

* * *

**1. ****_July, 2014_**

For Steve's birthday, Tony flew the five of them – Steve, Tony, Pepper, Bruce, and Anne – to Los Angeles to watch the Dodgers play. Steve was overcome with nostalgia; the blue-and-white uniforms serving as a reminder that some things could remain unchanged by time.

After the game, Tony showed Bruce and Steve the latest designs from the LA Stark Industries team. Anne and Pepper declined the tour, choosing instead to lounge by the pool at Tony's Malibu compound, working on matching, golden tans.

When the three men returned, they found them stretched out on lounge chairs, a table between them holding empty glasses half-full of melting ice. Pepper dozed lightly; Anne held a book up, dark sunglasses covering half her face.

She looked up as they stepped onto the patio, and waved. The sight of her, clad in a dark green two-piece, vast expanses of exposed skin glowing in the bright sunlight, made Steve's mind go unexpectedly blank.

"That's…Is that a bathing suit?"

Bruce laughed. Tony sighed and slung his arm over Steve's shoulders. "Isn't the future wonderful?"

* * *

Tony set them up at a table in the shade. Cold bottles of beer in hand, the three of them spent most of the afternoon talking strategy. Steve was grateful that his reflective sunglasses would mask his inability to keep his eyes off Anne. When she glanced at her watch and turned over onto her stomach, shaking Pepper's arm until she woke up and did the same, for a brief moment Steve felt his heart stop.

Half an hour later, out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Anne sit up, murmuring a few words to Pepper and pulling a white, cotton tunic over her head. As she rose and made her way into the house, she gave their table a friendly smile. "Going to call my sister," she explained as she passed them.

Steve waited ten whole minutes before standing, gesturing towards the empty bottle in front of him, "Goes right through you."

Tony grinned and raised an eyebrow suggestively, but as he opened his mouth, Bruce kicked him under the table.

"Sure does," Bruce smiled, watching Steve walk away.

* * *

As he opened the door to the huge, airy room Tony had assigned to them, Steve found Anne immediately on the other side, rushing towards him. Her outstretched hand was the only thing that stopped them from colliding.

"Jesus," she cried out in surprise, "For a second, I thought you weren't coming."

He grinned, pulling her against him, lifting her until her toes barely grazed the floor. "I was _trying_ not to be so damned obvious."

She pulled herself up higher, wrapping her legs around him. He leaned back slightly to accommodate the added weight, stepping inside and kicking the door shut behind him. His lips were on her collarbone, his palms cupping her backside; her skin was sun-warmed under his hands.

"It's just them," she murmured against his hair, "And it's your birthday. Who cares?"

"Not all of us believe in free love."

She rolled her eyes, "I should never have let you watch that documentary about Woodstock."

He smiled, tumbling her back onto the bed, climbing over her, his fingers finding her most ticklish spots. She laughed and wriggled underneath him, begging him to stop. When he did, she pulled the tunic over her head and sent it sailing to the floor.

He shifted over her, his mouth on the base of her neck, settling himself between her legs. As his hands slowly traced the Spandex triangles of her bikini top, he looked up at her, one eyebrow raised rakishly. "I thought you were trying to kill me out there, with this." One finger slid under the fabric and she gasped, her hips canting towards his instinctively. "A man can only take so much."

Her clever retort died on her lips as his head bent lower, his teeth and tongue finding her nipple through the thin fabric. He ground the hard bulge in his slacks against her, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. Her fingers threaded through his hair and she sighed, feeling drugged and dreamy, "How many times does this make today?"

His breath was hot against her side, "Not enough."

Steve's hands moved between them, unbuckling his slacks. Anne shook her head, her eyes fixed on his, "All off."

As he stood and stripped, she shifted more fully onto the bed, pulling off her top. The sliding glass door they had left open earlier that day let a lukewarm breeze into the room. She closed her eyes, stretching her arms over her head, and took a deep breath; the sea air smelled like California and home.

When her eyes opened, his fingers were hooked her swimsuit bottoms, pulling them down and off her legs. No more preliminaries needed, she parted her knees, he stretched over her, and pushed inside her, letting go of a deep breath he hadn't known he was holding. His mouth was hot against hers; their arms wrapped around each other as their hips moved in tandem.

In the warm air and the quiet room, the sounds of the wind and waves drifting in from outside, with her under him, whispering his name, Steve reveled in the simplicity of what their lives together had become – how easy and uncomplicated things with her were. It always struck him most when they made love. In bed, it was easy to imagine that they were the only people, the first man and woman on an empty planet. He could tell she felt it too, and it had made their drive for each other insatiable.

His hand slid between them, his fingers finding the spot just above the place where their bodies were joined, coaxing her body into a quiet, shuddering fall. When he was certain that she had come, he followed her, his free hand fisted in her hair, groaning her name into the mattress.

He leaned up to look at her, not yet ready to pull away. Her hair was a mess, her face flushed, her breathing only starting to slow down. She looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, brushing his hair away from his forehead.

He pressed his lips to hers. "Love you."

She sighed, content; her hands drifted across his shoulders and down his arms. "Love you, too."

He slid out of her, rolling to lie on his back next to her. "Do you think there's any way they haven't figured out what's going on in here?"

She laughed and shook her head.

"I think they know about us."

He rolled his eyes at her, but when he spoke his voice was quiet, almost shy. "I know. It's just—I wish they didn't have to know everything about everything. Some things should just be ours."

She turned towards him, laying her head on his shoulder, draping her arm around his waist. "This _is _ours."

He looked down at her, and she held his gaze for a moment before leaning up to kiss him, slowly and purposefully.

After a while, after the kiss had escalated, after they were tangled up in each other and breathless again, Steve pulled away. "How much longer 'til we're supposed to head out for fireworks?"

"_Hours_," she replied, smiling up at him, waggling her eyebrows lasciviously.

"Oh, hell." Steve flashed an ungentlemanly grin, flipping her onto her back and pressing a line of warm kisses down her stomach.

* * *

Later that night, as they watched the Huntington Beach fireworks from Tony's yacht, Anne covertly slipped her hand into his.

When he looked down at her, she beamed up at him, the fireworks making her skin light up in red and blue, "Happy birthday."

* * *

**2. ****_August, 2014_**

Andy and Claire visited for a week, wanting to see their sister without the recent specter of doom hanging over her, and happy to take up Steve's offer of another free flight and free lodging in Stark Tower.

The day they arrived, the Avengers team had been called away. Anne showed them Stark Tower, impressing them with the futuristic lab and the fact that she knew Tony Stark.

As they walked down the long hallway between Bruce's Research & Development offices and the Quinjet hangar, a team of Avengers Initiative agents rushed past them. When she saw a doctor from her medical staff run by, Anne stopped her.

"What's going on?"

The woman glanced at Andy and Claire quizzically. "Team's back."

"That was fast."

"No injuries reported. You want us to just do check-ins?"

"That's fine. Put the report on my desk. Sounds like it'll be an easy one." The other doctor nodded and continued her sprint down the hall.

It suddenly struck Anne that Steve wasn't on the jet, but Captain America was. She hesitated, deciding to direct the group back down the hallway, away from the hangar, when he rounded the corner, mask off, shield in hand.

For a moment, none of them moved. Anne looked at Steve desperately. He took a deep breath, knowing that it had been inevitable that Andy and Claire would find out, but bracing himself for their reaction.

"Andy. Claire. It's nice to see you again," he stepped forward, sliding off one of his gloves and extending his hand, as though nothing was amiss. As if it were Steve Rogers in the room, not Captain America.

They took his hand dumbly. He flashed an uncomfortable smile at Anne and started to make his excuses to leave, telling them he needed a shower and a change of clothes, telling them he would meet up with them later.

He had nearly made his way past them when Claire stopped him with a hand on his arm. For a moment, she ran her fingers across the blue fabric of the suit, her mouth open slightly.

She looked up at him, "Is this for real?"

He hesitated and nodded, giving her a self-deprecating half-smile.

Behind them, Andy burst into peals of laughter.

"Ho-ly shit, Annie. _Captain America?_" He strode over to them, "I'm sorry. You seem like a nice guy, Steve, and God knows I love you, Annie, but you – _you _– are going out with _Captain America_? I had no idea you were such a patriot."

Anne shot him a warning look, but Andy stormed on. He turned to Steve, pointing at his sister, "You know this girl has been arrested for civil disobedience _three times_? I've seen her – _her –_ chain herself up to the fence in front of the White House."

"Narc," Claire hissed, "Anyway, it's not like she's the only one who's ever done that." She glanced at Steve apologetically.

Anne's eyes were squeezed shut, her fingers at her temples. Steve's face felt hot; the idea of the three of them fighting because of him – because of _them_ – made him feel desperate and panicky.

Andy ran a hand through his hair, "Yeah, but she's the only one who's schtupping _Captain America_."

Steve cringed. Anne's eyes flew open; a line had been crossed. She grabbed Andy's arm and yanked him around the corner into her office.

* * *

Left alone in the empty hallway, Claire turned to Steve.

"Don't let him get to you. He always does this song-and-dance when Anne gets serious about someone. I don't know where he gets all this macho posturing from; it certainly doesn't run in the family."

He understood; Andy had told him as much when he visited New York last. But Steve had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from asking how often Anne had gotten serious with a man. He had never asked her about the men who came before him. He knew that it didn't matter, that she was his now, but something in him tensed.

Claire seemed to sense his thoughts. Her hand rested on his forearm. "Don't get insecure. I've never seen her like anyone as much as you. The way she looks at you," she put her hand over her heart, "We should all be so lucky as to have someone to look at us like that."

He nodded, staring at the floor.

She shook her head, beaming up at him, "Enough of that. Can I hold your shield?"

Steve smiled, running a hand through his hair and passing it to her.

* * *

"He just doesn't seem like your type," Andy sulked, their argument relocated to the privacy of Anne's office.

Anne threw up her hands. "Why? Because he's not a derelict or a junkie or a narcissist?"

He sputtered for a moment, trying to form a counterargument.

"You're such a baby," she murmured. He grimaced. It was an old insult.

"Fine, then, I'm being a baby. It's just—"

He took a deep breath and she looked up at him, her eyes meeting his.

"He's going to take you away from us, I can see it. And he's not – he's not _like_ us. What if he makes you different?"

She sighed. A moment before, she had thought that he was performing his usual routine – antagonizing her new partner. But this was different. She knew that he liked Steve, he had told her so, practically given them his blessing. This was a new kind of fear, one she could see in his face – a fear of permanently losing someone who had always been there for him, someone he had practically already lost when she moved across the country.

She took his face in her hands. "That's never gonna happen."

His expression softened.

"He's…He's it," her hands moved to his shoulders, "Please be happy for me."

"I am, I am," he whispered, pulling her against him, his arms wrapping around her. "You know Dad is going to hate this," he murmured against her hair, and she laughed softly.

Then, abruptly, she pushed him away. He looked down at her, concerned.

"I'm sorry," she muttered, her palm pressed to her forehead, "I just feel really strange all of the sudden."

She stumbled slightly and his hands gripped her waist, "Annie?"

She looked up at him, her eyes meeting his, seeing how worried he was. "I'm fine," she smiled feebly, "Maybe lunch didn't agree with me. I just need to lie down."

He nodded, "Let's get back to the room. You can lean on me."

She hooked her arm through his. As they walked back to Claire and Steve, Anne looked up at her brother.

"Don't say anything. He'll just worry."

Andy squeezed her arm and winked at her.

* * *

**3. ****_October, 2014_**

As summer turned to fall, Pepper noticed something change between Anne and Steve. There was something secretive and possessive about the way they looked at each other. Where before he had shied away from touching her unnecessarily, suddenly his hands were always on her.

In public, in front of the other Stark Industries staff, Pepper would see him just barely brush his fingers on her arm to get her attention. In front of the Avengers team, she would see him press his hand at the small of her back. When she and Tony were alone with them, he would wrap his arm around her waist. It wasn't much – tame in comparison to the way she and Tony hung off of each other, especially after he returned from particularly dangerous missions – but, considering Steve's natural reserve, it made Pepper happy to see it.

* * *

Pepper hadn't been looking for them when it happened. It was late, the hallways of Stark Tower were quiet and still, the offices dark. She had been on her way home, to the massive top-floor apartment she shared with Tony and his waiting arms, when she overheard voices from the medical lab. Thinking only of saying her goodnights and continuing on her way, she paused at the doorway, peeking inside.

Through a crack in the door, she could see Anne, with Steve standing behind her. His chin rested on her shoulder; his arms were wrapped around her, his hands spread wide on her stomach. They talked in low, unintelligible tones. Pepper's eyes narrowed. It suddenly struck her that Anne had changed – her face was full and rosy, her breasts heavier, her abdomen curved.

She pulled back in surprise as the realization hit her, her mind reeling. Without saying a word to them, she hurried to the elevator.

* * *

"I think Anne's pregnant," she announced as she entered, her voice a scandalized whisper.

Tony, lying on the sofa in front of her, looked up at her blankly. When she raised her eyebrows, holding her hands out, trying to impress upon him the gravity of what she was saying, he picked up the cue, rising to his feet in alarm.

"Oh. _Oh_. That's…that's really something. Are you sure?"

She glared at him, "You already know about this."

He hesitated, then conceded, "We had to work out a strategy around it. You know how things are. Trust me, it's been torture not telling you, but they wanted to keep it quiet for a while. I think they're still kind of stunned."

Consternation was written across her face, but Tony shook his head, waving the conversation away dismissively. He crossed the room to pull her close against him. Against her better judgment, Pepper relaxed, curling her arms around his shoulders.

"You can ask her about it tomorrow," he murmured, his lips finding purchase on the side of her throat, "Tonight, you're mine."

* * *

It had taken Pepper all day to decide what she wanted to say, and by the time she finally strode into Anne's office, full of resolve, Anne was packing away her things, nearly on her way home.

"I need to talk to you," Pepper declared.

"I have news for you, too," Anne smiled broadly from behind her desk. Pepper hesitated, her tirade paused, and Anne continued, "We're going to be neighbors. I'm moving in downstairs."

She shot Anne a skeptical look. "Is there something else you want to tell me?"

Anne's brow furrowed, "I—You can help me decorate?"

"_Anne_," Pepper huffed, throwing up her hands in exhaustion, "I know you're pregnant."

"Ah."

"When did this happen?"

Anne shrugged, unable to meet her gaze. "L.A. We – _I_ – got sloppy, I guess."

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?"

Anne winced, standing and moving towards her. "Don't be offended. It wasn't something we were expecting. Things–," she hesitated, shifting from foot to foot, "Things haven't been that simple, lately."

"What are you going to…I mean, how—," It suddenly struck her how difficult it had sometimes been for Tony to make sure she was safe, how hard it had been to keep the three of them – Pepper, Anne, and Jane – safe. To keep a defenseless child secure against the same threats seemed like an insurmountable challenge.

"The official story is that I used an anonymous donor. Clint and Natasha created this paper trail that's…" she trailed off, looking at her hands, "They did a really good job."

"What about Steve?"

Anne looked up at her, shaking her head and smiling weakly, "This kid's going to have the world's greatest uncles."

"Oh."

Pepper frowned, closing the gap between them and pulling her into her arms. After a while, she heard Anne sniff against her shoulder, but when she pulled away, her eyes were red-rimmed but dry.

At Pepper's urging, Anne explained the full plan – that they would wait until the child was old enough to tell them the truth of their parentage, that she would move into the empty apartment next to Steve's and the two of them would share as many responsibilities as they could without drawing suspicion.

"It'll be okay. This is a great thing." Pepper told her, her hands on Anne's shoulders.

Behind them, the door opened and Steve stepped through it, ready to walk her back to his apartment. Pepper turned to him, taking one of his big hands between hers, determined to put on a brave face. She smiled up at him brightly, "I hear congratulations are in order, Captain."

He swallowed, looking over her shoulder at Anne, then back at Pepper, "Thank you."

As they walked down the empty hallway, each going their separate directions, Pepper cast a glance back at them. Anne's arm was looped through Steve's; his free hand carried her briefcase. He murmured something Pepper couldn't make out and Anne laughed, her head tilting onto his shoulder.

Pepper couldn't help smiling to herself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Note: **In this installment, Anne and Steve feel all the feelings and have sex while a few months pregnant, which should come as no surprise if you've read this far. If that bothers you for some reason(?), skip this chapter.

* * *

**4. ****_November, 2014 _**

It was long past midnight when he woke her, his eyes screwed shut, his body jerking, groaning sounds that could almost have been words. She shook him and his arm swung out, just missing her.

"_STEVE_," she shouted, a jolt of alarm rushing through her.

His eyes snapped open; his body lurched, sitting upright, dazed and silent.

"Steve?" Anne touched his arm gently and he turned, looking at her like he had forgotten that she was in his bed. He closed his eyes, his brow furrowed, and leaned back against the headboard.

"The ice again?"

He rubbed his eyes, wiping his hands across his face.

"It was different this time. I was—" he stopped himself, shaking his head vigorously. His breaths were short and shallow; his hands fisted in the sheets. He felt dizzy and sick.

"Anne—" he gasped, "I feel like I'm having an asthma attack."

Her mind worked quickly, "You don't have asthma anymore. It's a panic attack."

He squinted at her, "A what?"

She straddled his lap, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes boring into his. She commanded him to breathe with her, coaching him into deep, even inhalations and exhalations until he felt something inside him unclench.

His hands rested on her knees, on either side of his hips; his gaze dropped to her stomach, which was only just starting to become conspicuous. The sight of it, the reminder of what was growing inside her, threatened to send him back into the fog.

"I never met my father. He never met me. I missed him by two months. What if – What if I don't make it."

Her eyes were fierce and dark in the low light, "That is _not_ going to happen."

He looked up at her miserably. "I don't know how to do this. I never had—"

She pursed her lips, running her fingers through his hair and leaning forward, bringing her face close to his. Her belly pressed between them.

"It's going to be okay," she whispered, forcing herself to be stronger than she felt, "We'll figure it out."

Even though he had regained control over his breathing, when he looked up at her, his eyes were unfocused, lost, filled with something she recognized from when she first met him. For a moment, she let defeat overtake her; accepting the knowledge that a certain kind of darkness would always chase them.

In one swift movement, he leaned up, his lips crashing against hers, his hand at the back of her head, fingers buried in her hair. She tried to match his intensity, cursing the growing belly that prevented her from pressing against him as closely as she once had.

He broke the kiss, his forehead leaning against hers. "I need to…to feel something else. Something besides–" He stopped himself. Something besides scared, sad, alone, and all the other things he would never let himself admit feeling.

Without hesitating, she lowered her hand, pushing his pajama pants out of the way, stroking him until he was hard. He sighed, relieved, his fingers spread across her back. She pushed the crotch of her underwear aside, lowering herself onto him. In the beginning, she had worried that her changed body would make him uncomfortable, but, though he could seem straight-laced, he had never been squeamish – not about her body, or his, or their bodies together.

"You won't leave me," he murmured as her hips moved against his. He felt engulfed by the enormity of the thing they had done – created – together. It was only with her next to him, wrapped around him that it – everything – felt manageable.

"Never," she gasped. She moved faster, driving him towards release, "And you'll never—You'll never—"

"No," his head fell back against the headboard, his brow smoothed, his hands gripped her hips, "Yours. You love me?"

"Always."

* * *

In the dark room, she leaned her head on his chest, one arm slung around his shoulder, her belly pressing into his side. One of Steve's big hands was tangled in her hair, the other holding her arm in place.

"What if he's like I was? Sick?"

She raised an eyebrow, "He?"

He shrugged, "I got a feeling about it." Beneath her head, she felt his chest rise and fall. When he asked again, his voice was so quiet, she had to strain to hear him, "What if that's what I pass on?"

"They won't just have our genes. They'll have my parents' and your parents' and everyone who came before them."

She looked up at him, saw him frown.

Anne leaned up on an elbow, watching his face, "Did your mother ever tell you what he was like? Your father?"

Steve shrugged and told her what his mother had told him; the bedtime stories she had given him in her lightly-accented English. He knew that his father had favored women's suffrage and voted for Woodrow Wilson. He had loved vaudeville; he had painted. He had come from a middle class family who had scorned his mother for being poor and an immigrant, but he had chosen her over them. His mother had told him that Joseph Rogers used to lie next to her, one hand on her pregnant belly, reading Steve the box scores.

Anne took his hand in hers, silently cursing the hormones that were bringing her dangerously close to tears.

"Do you know what he looked like?"

Steve's brow furrowed for a moment. Anne watched as he silently rose from the bed, turning on the bedside lamp and crossing the room to his dresser. From the top drawer he pulled out a faded black folder made of thin cardboard, no bigger than a playing card, and handed it to her.

Knowing what she held in her hands, Anne felt suddenly paralyzed. He had told her long ago that he had no photographs of his mother; he had told her that Sarah Rogers had sent all the photographs that had ever been taken of her to his father during the war, and they had been lost forever when he was killed. Anne had accepted that she would never see the woman who had given Steve to her.

But now, she held something that he had never showed her, not because it was a secret or because he hadn't trusted her, but because it was a part of his deepest self. Because it was something that only Bucky had ever seen before. She cradled it in her hands, looking up at him seriously, trying to make sure that he was sure. He settled himself next to her, his hands in his lap. Slowly, she opened the folder.

The photograph it held was sepia-toned, the edges worn. It was a full-length portrait, obviously taken in a studio, an American flag providing a backdrop. A young man, straight-backed and in uniform, stared back at her. She could feel Steve's eyes on her, anxious for her reaction, and she took a deep breath, steadying herself.

She looked up at him; her voice was barely a whisper, "Your father." He nodded and she looked down again. "He has kind eyes, like you."

"What happened to him?"

Steve swallowed, amazed that it could still be so difficult to talk about it – the death of this man he had never known.

"Mustard gas at Cantigny."

Her eyes slid shut. She knew more than enough chemistry to know that it was a horrible death.

He showed her other things she had never seen before, things that had been saved by the Strategic Scientific Reserve or by S.H.I.E.L.D.: a photograph of him and Bucky as gawky teenagers, his Purple Heart, and Bucky's, and his compass, lined with Peggy's picture. The two of them sat cross-legged on the bed, Steve's artifacts spread out in front of them.

"These are the things to pass on," he murmured so quietly that, for a moment, Anne thought he was talking to himself.

When she realized what he was saying, her eyes shot up to his, anxious and angry, "_Steve—"_

"Promise me," his voice was commanding, the Captain coming out.

She nodded soberly. "But I don't ever want to hear you talk about it again. Don't even think it."

He cringed, hating to be hard with her, but feeling steadier knowing that she agreed. He put his things on the nightstand, leaned over, and pulled her against him. He kissed her for a long while, until the frustration and fear had washed out of her, and they both felt euphoric and light.

He rolled Anne onto her side, facing away from him, knowing that it would be more comfortable for her. When he entered her, she sighed and leaned her head back against his shoulder. She loved making love like this, his hands spread across her swollen belly and breasts, his mouth on her shoulder, moving in and out of her in slow, long strokes. It made her feel primordial, like a part of something ancient and immense, made her feel like the bearer of some deep, new mystery.

When he let himself relax, he loved it, too; it gave him a rush of masculine gratification to be inside her, hearing her satisfied moans and sighs while she was heavy with the child he had given her.

"I wish we could always be like this," he whispered, his mouth near her ear, "All together."

She closed her eyes tight, a hard lump forming in her throat, and reached back, pressing her hand to his cheek.

"Hush," she whispered back, remembering something Claire had always told her as a child, "Everything is exactly the way it's supposed to be."

He wound his arm around her hip, burying his fingers in her sodden folds. After she had come, after she had cried out and rocked her hips against his, after she was liquid and molten at the place where their bodies were joined, he spent, filling her with seed that had already done its job.

When he slid out of her, she turned to him, clutching him against her chest, tears streaming down her cheeks. She filled his ears with unstoppable words about her heart and his pain and their love.

* * *

Later, they lay together, wound around each other.

"Annie," he murmured, his hands tracing her belly, "Can I call you that? Or is that just for them? For Claire and Andy?"

She smiled and shook her head. "That's what my family calls me," she shifted to face him, meeting his gaze, running her fingers along his collarbone, "That's what you are. My family."

He looked up at her, awed.

She kissed him briefly, not waiting for him to kiss her back, knowing that her ability to stay strong for him was, for that night at least, almost spent.

"Go to sleep."

* * *

**Notes: **So this was originally part of a longer chapter, with other scenes from the 10 scenes I'm planning on writing for this, but it was kind of draining, so I'm just letting it stand alone. It's a little dark, but hopefully the bad just makes the good feel better. The way I see it, Steve has a lot of damage, and the best way to keep him in character is to hit it head-on and come out the other side. And a perfect relationship would be boring, both to write and to read.

Also, I'm going to start keeping more esoteric, history-nerd notes and links for this story on my profile, to avoid clogging up the story with stuff that might not be interesting to everyone.

Thanks in advance to all readers and reviewers!


	3. Chapter 3

**Warning: **This is just a bunch of fluff.

* * *

**5. ****_January, 2015_**

Since he had found her, Steve had kept in contact with Peggy – driving out to New Haven once a month. He had never asked Anne to go with him, and she had never asked to come along, knowing that there were some things he needed to do alone. It wasn't until that January that he told her that Peggy wanted to truly meet her, not just encounter her in passing, as she had before.

At Peggy's home in New Haven, the three of them sat together for hours, Peggy regaling Anne with stories from the years Steve had spent with the Strategic Scientific Reserve, the early years of Captain America.

When Steve left them to find the restroom, Peggy turned to Anne.

"I loved him and lost him, once," she murmured, "It was one of the worst moments of my life."

Peggy looked at her sternly then, and Anne suddenly felt hot and nervous under her unflinching gaze. Steve had told her that she had been one of the first people to believe in him – in who he could become. Even though she knew Steve would never leave her over it, she knew that Peggy's approval was no small thing.

"I hope you know what it is that you have; how different he is, how rare, and not just because of the Captain. I hope you know lucky you are."

Anne set her jaw, "I know."

Peggy leaned back against her seat; her straight shoulders slumped. "I hope you won't lose him, like I did." She looked up at Anne seriously, and she understood her – understood that Peggy was still in love with him, that she had spent decades yearning for him. For the first time, it struck Anne that Steve hadn't been the only one who had lost something when he went under.

Peggy squeezed Anne's hand in hers. "You'll take care of him," she said quietly, her eyes distant.

When Steve came back, seeing Anne's hand in Peggy's, he felt something in his chest warm.

* * *

Later, as they said their goodbyes, Peggy kissed Anne's cheek, a hand pressed to her belly. When she asked Anne to give her a moment alone with Steve, she nodded wordlessly and retreated to the car. From the passenger's seat, Anne saw Steve wrap his arms around her. One of Peggy's frail arms curled around his waist, one hand rested on the back of his head. Her lips close to his ear, she spoke to him for a long while.

When Steve came back, as he turned the key in the ignition, Anne could see that his hands were trembling. His eyes were damp.

She put her hand on his arm, "I can drive."

He shook his head, unable to look at her, "I'll be alright."

* * *

That night, as they lay in bed together waiting for sleep, the bedside lamp lighting up the room in a golden glow, Anne held his one of his hands between hers, kissing the curves of his knuckles, running her fingers down his forearm.

"Did you ever love anyone before Peggy?" she asked, "Or was she the first?"

He smiled, shifting until his head was close to hers, "Marta Novak." He hadn't really loved Marta, of course. He hadn't known what it was to love a woman back then. But he had thought that he had, and it had made his twentieth year one of infatuation and false hopes.

Her eyebrows raised, "Sounds very Old World."

"That was Greenpoint," he shrugged.

She shifted next to him, settling in, "Tell me."

"We went to school together, at Auburndale. She was pretty: dark hair, dark eyes. Smart, too," he wound a lock of her brunette hair around his finger, "She wanted to see my drawings; I invited her back to my place, and she kissed me."

Anne's eyes lit up, "She did?"

He smiled, pleased that she was pleased. "She did."

"What happened?"

He laughed, "Bucky dated her for three weeks."

Anne frowned.

"He was the lady killer, not me."

"And then Peggy?"

"And then Peggy," He lifted the back of her hand to his lips, "And then you."

She sighed and smiled. He turned off the light, turning her back to his front and spreading his hands across her belly.

* * *

When Sharon called him three weeks later to tell him that Peggy had died, Steve wasn't surprised. In their last moments together, Peggy had told him how ill she was, and how little time her doctors had given her. She had told him what a good father he would be, and what a good man he already was. As he finally, reluctantly, left her, she had told him that she loved him. When he returned the words, it didn't feel like a betrayal. He knew that he could love them both: these women who had saved him, each in their own way.

They drove back to New Haven a week later for the funeral, along with Tony and Pepper. As a friend of his father's, Tony had met Peggy several times as a child, and had been surprised to learn that Steve had been in contact with her.

As the eulogies were read, as Peggy Carter was laid to rest, the four of them, black-clad and somber, stood side-by-side, remembering the woman she had been, and the gifts she had given them.

* * *

**6. ****_March, 2015_**

They were on the Quinjet, on their way back to Stark Tower, when the call came through. Tony answered it, and, after talking quietly for a moment, pressed a button that projected an image of Pepper Potts, beaming and flushed, in the center of the jet's hull. Tony's armored hand was on Steve's shoulder.

"Dr. Spring had her baby this afternoon – a little boy," Pepper announced, a grin spread across her face. Steve felt his heart stick in his throat. For a moment, it didn't even matter that he had missed it – he had a child, a son, and nothing else mattered.

Pepper went on, "They're both doing fine. She's exhausted. I've never seen anyone sleep so hard. You want to see?"

"Jesus, Pep, of course we want to see." Through the cool, comfortable numbness that had washed over him a moment before, Steve looked over at Tony, his hand still on his shoulder, on the edge of his seat, his eyes fixed on the projection.

"Are you ready? Is everybody watching?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Pepper turned her phone around, revealing Anne, propped up in a hospital bed, her eyes closed, head lolling back, hair a tangled mess, her mouth open wide, snoring softly. Cradled in her arms was a tiny bundle. The phone flipped around again, Pepper's face filling the screen.

"That's all you get for now. Anne's going to kill me if she finds out I did that."

Dimly, Steve heard Tony and Pepper exchange goodbyes.

After the projection went dark, Thor strode over to him, clapping him on the back, grinning jovially, "A son!"

In an instant, his team surrounded him, all of them smiling – even Natasha and Clint, neither of them known for their smiles – and shaking his hand. Of the five of them, though, it was Bruce who smiled the widest, and shook his hand the longest.

* * *

Pepper was waiting for him when he emerged from the changing room. Still smiling, she led him to the tower's hospital ward, all the way to Anne's room. As he stepped inside, he heard her quietly close the door behind him.

As he walked towards her, Anne gingerly scooted to one side of the bed, not content to let him sit in a chair next to her. He perched on the edge, examining her, first. Her hair was pulled back, stringy with dried sweat, and she was too pale. But when she looked up at him, meeting his eyes, the look on her face was a mirror of his own – awed, reverent, overwhelmed.

When she passed the bundle in her arms to him, for a full five minutes, all he could do was stare at the tiny, sleepy child in his arms. Steve's fingers brushed the smattering of dark hair across the crown of his head, the soft curve of his pink cheek, touching his tiny palm and letting his little fingers reflexively curl around one of his. Whatever else happened, he would always know that he had seen his son.

He looked up at Anne, his mouth open slightly, his eyes wide and glassy, "Annie—" It was all he could say, the only word he could find.

She smiled, and he smiled back, "I know."

His brow furrowed, "Was it hard?" When he was young, childbirth was always hard, deadly even. As they neared her due date, Anne had had to thoroughly reassure him before he had stopped worrying that she was in danger.

Anne laughed, "It wasn't easy."

"Pepper—"

"She took good care of me."

Steve nodded. Tucking the child against him with one arm, he reached out to hold her hand, silently reminding himself to thank Pepper later.

* * *

Because he couldn't give the boy his name, Steve gave him his father's name: Joseph.

Tony waited six weeks before calling him out on a mission. Back at Anne's apartment, the three of them cocooned together, barely accepting visitors. Caught up in the afterglow of his family's creation, Steve spent hours just watching them – Anne with her hair loose around her shoulders, glasses sliding down her nose, Joe latched onto her breast, her hand cradling his head. Steve felt like he was moving underwater, in a place where time slowed, where voices were hushed and the rest of the world faded away. Alone with them, it was easy to envision a simple life.

* * *

**Notes: **As a historian (in my real life), I love the idea of Captain America growing up in a neighborhood with a large immigrant population (in this case, I'm suggesting Greenpoint, Brooklyn), and being himself descended from a recently immigrated family (the Kowalskis from _A Losing Game_). The immigrant experience is obviously very American, and prevalent in New York at the turn of the century, so it made sense to me.

Also, is it crazy that, once this story is finished, I kind of want to write a one-shot about pre-serum Steve, Bucky, and Marta Novak? Would anyone read it?

Thanks, as always, to those who take the time to write a review. Reviews really do help keep me motivated to keep this going. It's kind of a challenge to write an established character with a kid without letting them fall out of character, so hopefully this rings true.


	4. Chapter 4

**Note: **The first scene (7) takes place a little over a month after the last chapter left off. The second set of scenes (8) take place when Joseph is five years old.

* * *

**7. ****_May, 2015 _**

Andy and Claire arrived first, along with Claire's partner – a statuesque redhead with tattoos from her shoulders to her elbows. Anne's parents arrived just hours later on a separate flight from Mombasa, where they kept a second home. Her father was a tall, bespectacled man named Alan. Her mother, a curly-haired woman with a gigantic beaded necklace, introduced herself to Steve not as Anne's mother, but as "Rachel Berkowitz-Spring." The five of them stayed for a weekend, filling Anne's Stark Tower apartment, passing Joseph from person to person, letting him coo and sleep in their arms.

From Anne, Steve had come to understand that her parents had been rarely seen in the Spring home; they had been more concerned with their tenure than their children. He understood that it had been Claire who had taken care of Anne and Andy, cleaning and bandaging their childhood scrapes, cooking them dinner, singing them to sleep.

To watch the three of them jockey for their parents' attention even now – Claire and Anne at their father's elbows, Andy doting on their mother – made something in Steve's chest twist. The way Anne looked at her father – hopeful and a little anxious – made Steve wish she had had more from him.

On their second night, Anne told her parents about Captain America, and Steve answered nearly all of their questions about his strange story and anomalous physiology. Her mother had curled her finger around her lower lip in a perfect imitation of Anne's most thoughtful expression. Her father had nodded comprehendingly, his expression withdrawn and cool.

Afterward, as the Springs opened a bottle of wine and settled in for the evening, the aroma of Anne's mother's borscht wafting through the apartment, Steve found Alan on Anne's tiny balcony. The cool night air filled his lungs as he closed the door behind him and approached the railing.

"May I join you?" he asked quietly. He wasn't sure what bearing Alan's approval had on his standing with Anne or her siblings, but he found himself seeking it anyway.

After a silent moment, Alan cleared his throat. "When I was three years old, my father was killed on Omaha Beach."

Steve bowed his head, taken off guard but immediately understanding the seriousness of the revelation, "I'm sorry."

The older man swallowed, his voice becoming strained, "They used to give the servicemen these comic books – I suppose you know – about Captain America. He'd send them to me, even though I couldn't read yet."

He cleared his throat again, chasing away the emotion that threatened to choke him, "When he died, my mother was out of her mind with grief. When she got rid of his things, she let me keep them – the comics. They were all I had…" His voice finally gave out. He stared at his hands, curled around the railing, "I've never told anybody about that."

Steve could tell he was unable to go on, so he relieved him. "My father died in combat, too. Before I was born."

Alan looked up at him, "Did he?"

Steve nodded. "My mother was a nurse with the Red Cross in France – that was how they met. She had this record, this song about a soldier who gets wounded but wants to stay in the hospital because the nurses are so pretty. She told me it was his favorite. I must have listened to it a million times."

He looked over and Alan gave him a sad smile. "The way Anne turned out, the way all three of them turned out, I wish I could take more credit." He sighed, and adjusted his glasses. "I didn't know what to do with children. No one ever showed me. But that's hardly an excuse."

The two men, made alike only by what they had both lost and how they had lost it, stood together in silence, looking out at the glow of the city.

"Anne told me that you were Joseph's father," Alan said softly, "You'll do better than I did."

"How do you figure?"

He smiled, pulling his tweed jacket tighter around his torso and turning to go back inside. When their eyes met, Alan bore an expression Steve seen before from old-timers who recognized him: familiar and fond, the way people look at old friends.

"Because you're Captain America."

* * *

**8. ****_Summer, 2020 _**

**_June_**

Joseph's eyes turned into an icy blue, like Steve's; his chestnut hair mirrored Anne's. As he got older, he proved to be precocious and shy, like Steve had been as a child, and free-thinking and open-hearted, like Anne had been.

At first, they had only halfheartedly committed to the plan to present Steve to Joe and the world as an uncle. Anne had been a particularly vocal opponent of the idea. But once he was born, once they had seen how small and vulnerable and precious he was, once they had seen the intelligence Natasha and Clint provided about incoming threats, they had become desperate, willing to try anything.

In the end, though he loved all his uncles – Tony, who taught him to play air guitar, Andy, who taught him to play a real guitar, and Bruce, who showed him science experiments in the Stark laboratory – Joe was drawn to Steve, and became a fixture at his side. It was Steve who ate dinner with them every night. It was Steve who was only one who colored with him and watched cartoons with him on Saturday mornings. The only one who took him to the art store, and let Joe hold the flashlight while he fixed the leak in the kitchen sink. The only one whose hand his mother held when she thought no one was looking.

When the team wasn't out on a mission, Steve walked him to school in the mornings. It made Anne's heart ache to watch them leave: Steve making sure Joe had his folders, pencils, and snack, Joe's little hand in Steve's, his tiny backpack in Steve's free hand. When Steve came back, alone, she would wrap her arms around his shoulders and pull him into her bedroom, her love for him unbearable and overwhelming.

* * *

Tony had had a doorway installed between Anne and Steve's neighboring apartments, linking their bedrooms through a panel that slid away at the press of a button. Steve, his comings and goings a secret, slept every night in her bed, the two of them wrapped tight around each other. Together, they chased away their nightmares: hers about losing him, and his about losing them.

It was a warm June night - Joseph's first year at the kindergarten three blocks away had only just ended - when Steve was pulled from sleep by a strange presence in the room. As the mattress dipped under added weight, he jerked awake, sitting up, fists clenched. At the sight of the dark-haired boy at the foot of the bed, he froze.

"Joe?"

"Uncle Steve?"

In the shadowy darkness, the two of them looked at each other for a long, silent moment.

"What's the matter?"

"I had a bad dream." Joe folded his legs under him, sitting on his heels, "How come you're here?"

Anne shifted slightly; he could tell she was only pretending to sleep.

Steve swallowed, hesitating. "I had a bad dream, too."

Joe looked at him pensively, as though he were working something out in his head. When he finally nodded in understanding, Steve breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that he was still too young to come to any untoward conclusions, satisfied that the pretense they had built to protect him remained intact.

Steve moved to the edge of the bed, gesturing to Joe, who crawled into the gap between them, sliding under the covers and closing his eyes.

* * *

**_July_**

As he disembarked from the Quinjet, newly returned from the team's latest battle, Steve smiled at the sight of Joe, waiting for him patiently.

Steve walked up to him, ruffling Joe's hair with his gloved hand, "You're a sight for sore eyes."

Joe's little brow furrowed. "Are you hurt?"

He followed the boy's eyes to the torn side of his uniform. The bare skin under it was slashed, blood oozing down the blue fabric.

"Don't worry, kiddo," he smiled, sliding off his glove and taking his hand, "Your mom'll stitch me up."

Joe nodded and led Steve to the elevator and up to his mother's apartment. As they walked, Steve struggled not to favor his unhurt side.

* * *

As they entered her apartment, Anne came towards them, smiling and wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

"Hey, Annie." Steve's eyes were fixed on hers; he winced as he stepped into the room.

She noticed the injury immediately, and sobered. Joe glanced between them nervously, sensing something serious, but Anne smiled at him brightly.

Anne led them into the kitchen, spreading out her medical kit on the table while Steve peeled off his uniform jacket and undershirt. Joe climbed onto a stool next to her, watching as his mother's gloved hands knit the wound together. The first time he had seen them do this, he had cried, frightened by Steve's clenched jaw and Anne's drawn face. But, over time, once Steve and Anne learned to better hide their pain, Joe had grown accustomed to it. It helped when Anne gave him little jobs – things to hold, things to pass her when she asked for them.

When Joe looked up, meeting Steve's eyes, his father flashed a reassuring smile, "Didn't I tell you?" Joe looked at his mother, and Anne winked at him. He smiled and swung his feet, happy to be with them both, all together.

* * *

**_August_**

That summer, Joseph took to sleeping in their bed, his tiny body curled up between them. When Anne had asked him why he wouldn't sleep in his own bed, he had told her that he was afraid of losing Steve, and she couldn't summon the strength to tell him that he had to move back to his room.

She made it nearly a month before finding Pepper, taking her by the shoulders, and begging her and Tony to take Joe for the night.

When Steve got back to the apartment, fresh from training, breathless and still in uniform, Tony and Pepper were just leading Joe towards the elevator.

"Where're you going?" he asked as he approached them.

"Joe's going to stay over at our place tonight," Pepper smiled cheerfully, her hand folded around Joe's.

"Really?" his eyebrows raised, the implication clicking into place, "That's…great."

He ran a hand through Joe's hair, and the boy grinned up at him, "Have fun, kiddo."

"You, too," Tony smirked, cocking an eyebrow suggestively.

* * *

Steve found Anne in her kitchen, grabbed her by the waist and lifted her onto the kitchen table. She gasped as he shoved her skirt up to her waist, pulling off her underwear, and kneeling between her legs, draping her knees over his shoulders.

In an instant, his fingers were buried in her, his teeth and tongue on the hard bud at the front of her sex. It was an act he had honestly never thought of until she had showed it to him, but it was something he had come to crave: the sight of her laid open in front of him, the way she cried out and writhed under his attentions, the taste and feel of her under his mouth – hot and heady and _his_.

As much as he loved Joe, as much as he loved the three of them together, in the last few days, his need to be alone with Anne had consumed him. Even standing too close to her made his skin twitch. With this goal finally accomplished, he felt a cool, cottony satisfaction take him over, making him hard, making him groan against her, making him struggle not to take himself in hand.

When he shifted, his hand spread across her mons, his thumb strumming the most sensitive part of her while the hard point of his tongue dipped inside her, she began to spend, whimpering, her hands clutching the edges of the table, her thighs clamped around his head, holding him in place until she was finished.

When her shuddering slowed, he kissed his way down her inner thigh. "C'mon," he murmured against the soft flesh there, "Want you in bed."

When she didn't respond, he looked up at her. Her arm was draped across her face, her mouth open slightly. She nodded, still too breathless to speak. Steve smiled, pulling her up against him, letting her wrap herself around him as he carried her into their bedroom.

"God," she swore softly, looking down at the uniform, "You're still—"

He smiled and blushed, "You want me to keep it on?"

Anne laughed, touching her lips to a spot below his ear, "Not this time. I just want Steve."

* * *

He spilled her back onto the bed, leaning away from her to pull off the suit while she undressed. He covered her, pushing hard into her. The warm weight of him, the heft of him inside her, the gentle brush of his mouth on hers, made Anne cry out and lose her senses for the second time that evening.

"You're…You're…" she gasped incoherently.

"What is it?" his voice was rough and gravelly, his breath hoarse and ragged, "What am I?"

His strokes deepened and quickened. His hand on her lower back tilted her hips, changing the angle until he felt her ripple around him; until her fingernails dug into his biceps and her legs snapped up and around his waist.

"Everything," she cried, her hands pawing at his shoulders, his hair, his lower back. He could feel the tension building in her, could feel how close she was to spilling over. "My lover. My husband. _Mine_."

It was more than he could take. He was thankful that she was so close, that she could follow close behind as he came with a sharp jerk and a shout.

For a long while, their arms were still wrapped around each other. His hardness faded, but neither of them had the wherewithal to part. He knew what she had meant – that, through all that they had endured, they were married together in a way that went deeper than paper or rings; to add the trappings of legal marriage to their union now would only cheapen what they had already pledged to each other.

They spent hours pressed together, not minding that they were sweaty and slick with the products of their lovemaking. They dozed together, her fingers woven into his hair and his big arms wrapped tight around her waist. When they woke, his hands were on her breasts, or her mouth was between his legs, and they began again.

Steve glowed, felt like he was lighting up the room. It was always the same, when he was in her arms: nothing bad mattered, and everything was exactly as it should be. For a few hours, at least, that was enough.

* * *

**Notes: **Thanks, as always, to all readers, followers, and reviewers! Obscure history-nerd notes/links are in my profile. Just one more chapter of this left. Hope you all have enjoyed it.


	5. Chapter 5

**9. ****_October, 2021_**

When the Quinjet landed, Anne already had her staff manning a triage center in the hangar, ready to stabilize the injured and move them to the hospital ward. They had had three reports: Tony had sustained an unspecified head injury, Clint had had an arm mangled, and Steve. Natasha hadn't described his injuries, saying only that he was in "real bad shape," words that chilled Anne to the bone and sent her imagination into overdrive.

She only caught a glimpse of him as he was moved out of triage and into an operating theater, but she had seen enough. The suit had been cut away. His eyes were closed. His stomach was a mass of blood. He was surrounded by medics, shouting orders at one another.

Ignoring the medic in front of her, who had been updating her on Agent Barton's condition, Anne sprinted towards them, ready to enter the fray. When she reached them, eyes wild, one of the medics she had assigned to Steve stopped her with a hand on her arm, forcing her to merely watch as he was wheeled away.

"Please, Dr. Spring," the medic gave her a serious look. Anne hesitated, but nodded. The case was too personal; she knew she shouldn't be involved.

She sighed, "I want Johnson, Davis, and Banner in there. I don't care where they are, get them here. I want a full report on this, so do it right."

* * *

She waited in her office, knowing that it wouldn't do to have her staff see her pacing the hospital ward's receiving room. Tony's head injury had been minor, and he and Pepper had offered to pick Joe up from school and keep him at their penthouse.

It was nearly midnight when word came across the radio that Steve had been moved out of surgery. Anne sprinted towards the ward.

When she reached her target, it was Bruce who caught her, pulling her into an empty office and out of view of a crowd of medics and assistants who looked at her with pity-filled eyes.

When she asked Bruce how he was, all she could hear was what he wasn't saying.

"He's still unconscious."

_He's in a coma_.

"We, uh, we set him up in the ICU."

_He's intubated. Hooked up to an IV drip. Hooked up to more machines than you want to think about._

"Shit," Anne swore, her eyes squeezed shut, "_Shit._"

She could hear her breathing grow ragged, she could feel her throat close up and her vision blur, but she was powerless to stop it. Just when she felt about to fall, to collapse into a heap on the floor, Bruce's arms were around her. Her hands were fisted in his shirt in an attempt to hang on to something stable.

It was more than Steve's injuries that broke her down, more than the knowledge that he was lying in a hospital bed, torn to shreds, although that certainly would have been enough. All of the fear and guilt and contrition she had held inside her for years came spilling out of her, not in words, but in uncontrollable, wracking sobs.

Bruce's arms were tight around her, one hand stroking the back of her head. There was something pacifying about being held by someone who didn't have to comfort her, who only chose to out of his own goodness.

"Where's Joe?" he asked gently, once her breathing started to even out again.

She straightened, swiping her palms across her cheeks, trying to wipe away tears that were still coming. "With Tony and Pepper. Pepper said she told him that something was wrong with Steve, but he doesn't know that it's…that it's…"

Bruce took her by the shoulders, dipping his head to look her straight in the eye. "Go get him. Go home. I'll call you if anything changes."

She couldn't speak, but shook her head vigorously. The thought of leaving Steve made her stomach churn.

"Anne," Bruce's voice was low and serious, "Joe needs you. He needs you to keep it together. Okay?"

"Yeah," her voice was small, "Okay."

* * *

"It's late," Pepper had tried to reason as she let Anne into the penthouse, "Why don't you both stay with us tonight?"

Anne's jaw was set, her eyes steely. "No. We need to go home."

Tony, his left temple bandaged, disappeared into their spare room, emerging moments later with Joe in his arms, still asleep, his arms curled around Tony's broad shoulders. Tony followed Anne down the elevator to her apartment, finally laying the boy down on his bed.

As he said goodbye to Anne, Tony tugged her against him, letting her go and stepping back into the hallway before she even realized that he had embraced her.

* * *

She drifted into their bedroom, mindlessly pulling off her clothes and yanking on pajamas. For a long, silent moment, she looked around the room, trying to absorb everything that happened, trying to stay in the moment and not let herself fall into despair.

The Vonnegut she had given Steve in the early days of their friendship rested on his nightstand. She loved the way he read books: left pages dog-eared, underlined whole paragraphs, filled the margins with his illegible scrawl and miniature pen drawings.

She picked it up, sitting on the edge of his side of the bed, thumbing through the pages until she found a sentence he had underlined: _I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep._ A few more pages, another underline: _People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore._

She sighed, her eyes sliding shut. How sad he had been when she first met him, how lonely and angry. There was sadness in him still – for his parents, for Peggy and Bucky – but it was different now, the sharp burn replaced by a dull ache.

She suddenly knew that if she got in that bed, in the room where they made love, under the covers that smelled like him, knowing that he was downstairs, unconscious, with plastic shoved down his throat and needles in his arms, she might never leave it.

Anne set the book down, turned off the light, and padded quietly down the hall to Joe's room. She crossed the room, dodging the elaborate sprawl of toys that covered the floor. Her hand on his arm nudged him awake.

"Scoot over."

Joe moved closer to the wall. She curled up next to him, sliding her feet under the Iron Man bedsheets Tony had insisted on (and Steve had rolled his eyes at), not minding that she nearly didn't fit. Joe shifted closer to her and she wrapped her arm around him, her hand cradling the back of his head, fingers combing through his hair.

"Is he going to be alright?" Joe asked, his voice small, his head tucked against her shoulder.

Anne sighed, "I don't know, baby. Could be."

Joe nodded. The two of them lay together and awake in Joe's slim little bed for a long while.

"Is he—" Joe began, growing suddenly very still, "Is he my dad?"

Joe's stomach clenched in anticipation. He had suspected it for as long as he could remember. Had somehow known by the way Steve looked at him, the way he tucked him in at night, the way he said his name, that they were connected. It was only now, when he felt on the verge of losing him, that he finally had the courage to ask.

Anne felt her heart fall through the floor, but immediately chastised herself for her own surprise. He was bright, their son. He had had them figured out all along.

"He is," she sighed, feeling a weight lifted off of her – off of _them_, "He is."

Neither of them able to sleep, they moved to the couch. Anne made them cocoa and answered his questions. She had been terrified that he would be angry with them, but, in his usual quiet, preternaturally graceful way, he had just nodded and curled up next to her, listening as she told him the story of their family – how it had started, why it had been hidden, and the wonderful things that it meant.

* * *

With his advanced healing abilities, Steve was drifting in and out of consciousness by that morning. Within days, Anne and Bruce had wheeled him down to her apartment, settling him into their bedroom.

Joe sat next to him for hours on end, listening with new ears to his stories. Steve showed him all the things he had showed Anne once before, on a night when he had been haunted by his own mortality, when the mere thought of their child was terrifying and incomprehensibly large. He told him all about Bucky, and Peggy, and Joseph Rogers and Sarah Kowalski.

For a week, he was bedridden. Anne stayed away from the Stark medical laboratories, letting Steve be her only patient. After school, Joe would bound into their bedroom, sitting at the foot of the bed and telling Steve about his day. Every night, the two of them ate dinner on their laps in the bedroom to keep him company.

As he always did, Steve hated feeling weak, feeling helpless. He let Anne change his bandages, bring him meals, take his vitals, and dose him with barely-effective painkillers, but he had ardently refused the bedpan, insisting on making his way to the bathroom even though standing made his head swim.

Their differing heights meant that she fit easily under his arm, acting as a crutch on one side while he scooted the IV stand along with his other hand. When they reached the bathroom, she would always offer to help, but he would scowl and mutter as he shuffled inside, "Not in a million years, Doc."

* * *

It was a cool autumn day, the first really chilly day of the season, a week after he had left the hospital, when Doctors Banner and Johnson gave him a clean bill of health. It would still be another week before Anne cleared him to rejoin the team, but on that particular morning, he took advantage of his regained strength, turning off her alarm clock, waking Joe up, making him breakfast, packing his lunch, enjoying the return to routine.

After Joe had been safely delivered at school, Steve came back to her, shedding his clothes and sliding back into bed, pulling her against him. For a week, her hands on him had been healing, soothing. He had had nothing from her but a few chaste kisses, as if she were afraid of breaking him or hurting him, as if she were capable of such a thing. For the last few days of his recovery, he had ached for more, ached for her to touch him like she was his lover. Like she was his.

Steve pressed warm, open-mouthed kisses along her neck, down the line of her shoulder. She stirred, looking at him with heavy eyelids. He pushed back the sheets, pulling off her pajamas, his hands and mouth working their way across her body.

When he stretched over her, his mouth on hers, her fingers threaded in his short hair, her back arched against him, and it was as if the last, terrible week hadn't happened. Then, suddenly, remembering his injury, her eyes flew open and she gasped, pulling away and pushing her hands against his shoulders, "You can't—You shouldn't—"

Steve growled; in one swift movement, he grabbed her wrists, pinning them over her head, one big hand enough to hold them both. She frowned and wriggled against the restraint as his free hand traced down her curves at a leisurely pace. When she came more fully out of sleep, when she realized that he was naked and pressing hard against her thigh, the throb between her legs made her still.`

"_Annie_," his voice rumbled near her ear, and she turned her face towards his. His eyes, dark and glassy with lust, met hers. He raised an eyebrow and she understood what he needed to show her: that, even though she had seen him at his lowest, he was still strong, still the same. Still able to make her fall to pieces underneath him.

He kept her wrists in his hand, refusing to let her try to push him away, but adjusting his grip to make sure he wasn't hurting her. Her fists clenched, fighting against the drive to touch him. His long body moved over hers. His mouth found her breasts, tonguing and nipping at her beaded nipples. She sighed and whimpered, letting him handle her. He pressed his hand between her legs, unable to stifle a groan when he felt how ready she was for him; when his fingers began to move, it was only moments before she shuddered and clenched under him, gasping into his mouth as he kissed her.

"Please," Anne whispered. Her eyes were unfocused, her heart pounding in her ears, "_Please_."

He placed his tip against her center, pushing inside her slowly, his hard, velvety length filling her, making her sigh and tilt her hips instinctively. When he was buried in her fully, he stilled. Already teetering on the brink of another climax, Anne almost cried out in frustration at the lack of movement, but when she looked up at him, he wasn't looking at her. His eyes were downcast, almost shy, his brow furrowed slightly.

"You take such good care of me."

He swallowed, willing away the lump in his throat that had taken him by surprise just seconds earlier, at the touch of his flesh to hers. There had been so few people who had done for him what she did, and none who had given him everything, as she had.

Her wrists moved against his grip and he let go of her. Her fingers traced the planes of his face – his brow, his cheekbones, the hard line of his jaw.

"'S what you deserve."

He buried his face against her shoulder, breathed in deep and let loose a long, slow exhalation, waiting for the ache in his heart to pass. When he pulled back, his eyes met hers. He shook his head slightly and smiled, ready to move on. He pulled out of her in a long slow slide. Then, tilting her hips with one hand on her lower back, he surged against her, the tip of him stroking the most sensitive part of her, making her head fall back and her legs tighten around him.

"Gonna have my way with you now."

She grinned, stretching her arms back over her head, letting him pin her again, "You better."

* * *

Later, long after Joe had come home from school, after they had eaten, after he had put away the homework he had spread across their coffee table, he found them in the kitchen. Anne's arms were around his waist; her eyes were closed, her head tilted against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. Steve's hands were on her shoulders, his face buried against her hair.

When they looked up and saw Joe enter, they didn't spring apart, as they'd used to. Steve held out his arm and Joe walked into it, leaning against his side. His father's big hand curled around his shoulder. He smelled like leather jacket and Old Spice. His mother looked down at him, smiled, and ruffled his hair with her hand.

And Joe was happy.

* * *

**10. ****_November, 2021 _**

When Steve had first broached the idea of a semi-retirement, when he first told Tony about his plan, Tony had taken him by the shoulders, told him "Go West, old man," and offered him a healthy retainer.

It wasn't until that night, after Joe was tucked away in bed, that he brought it up to Anne. He found her sitting up in bed, a book on her lap, her glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose.

"What if I took a break? For a little while. Maybe longer."

"A break from what?" she looked up from her book.

He sat next to her, pulling the blankets over his lap. "From Captain America. From the Avengers."

She closed the book, her brow furrowed. She had seen how his injury the month before had spooked him, and she had heard from Pepper (who had heard from Tony), how much less willingly he threw himself into their battles since Joe had been born.

"We aren't alone anymore," he continued, "Tony's finding new people for the team every day. I could still be on call, of course."

She frowned, biting her lower lip.

"I was thinking about California."

She straightened and turned to him, looking at him directly, "You're serious."

He wrapped an arm around her, pulling her to his chest, "I am. Stark has a headquarters in LA. It'd make it easy to call me in."

"Wouldn't you miss New York?"

He smiled and shook his head. New York wasn't home. Home was where Anne and Joe were.

She could see it spread out in front of them, the future they could have: a house by the beach, the job her friends from Berkeley could get her at Cedars-Sinai, road trips to the Redwoods and long days in the sun. She saw Joe growing up into the Southern Californian boys she had known when she was young: laid-back, long-haired and tan, with a garage band and a surfboard strapped to the roof of his car.

Steve nuzzled the side of her neck, pulling her closer. "Let's do it, Annie. Let's get out of here. Let's just be us."

She turned to him, smiling, her hands on his face, "Okay."

* * *

They were on a Stark Industries jet to San Francisco the next week, planning to stay with Claire until they figured out where they wanted to settle.

On the long journey across the country, somewhere over flat farmland, Anne and Joe fell asleep; her forehead pressed against the cool plastic of the airplane window, Joe stretched across the seats, his head in her lap.

Steve thought of the first time he had ever seen her – cleaning and bandaging his wounds after the Chitauri attack. He thought about the long talks they had had in her office, about all the nights he had walked her home, just so that he could end his day knowing that he had been alone with her, even if it was just for a few moments.

He thought about the first time he had really held her, exhausted and aching in his tiny berth aboard the helicarrier. Up until that moment, she had been the one to see him when the thing he had needed most was to be seen. It was then that he had seen her.

He thought about the moment she had told him about Joseph, how nervous and hopeful and full of love she had been. He didn't know what waited for them in California, but he didn't mind the suspense. Whatever it was, it would be more open, more honest, more real than anything they had had before.

In a few hours they would land, and something new and beautiful would begin.

* * *

**Notes: **I hope some of you liked this little saga I wrote. I doubt I'll ever revisit Anne and Steve, but I'm working on notes and initial dialogue/scenes for a few one-shots: pre-serum Steve/Marta Novak, Steve/Natasha, and maybe something else circa _Captain America_. We'll see what comes of it.

As a final disclaimer, there are two italicized lines in this chapter quoted from Kurt Vonnegut's _Slaughterhouse Five_, which is exactly the kind of book Anne would have given Steve in the early chapters of _A Losing Game_, and exactly the kind of book that would have resonated with him (I think).

A final thanks to all reviewers, followers, and readers! Thanks, guys!


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